I’ll say this about the cycling of NASCAR star Carl Edwards.

Dude can ride one mean wheelie.

On my ride with Edwards and his posse Thursday on the Katy Trail, Edwards popped a wheelie and rode it across of every little bridge over a creek or culvert on the trail.

Every single one.

I was impressed. His buds were not.

“We’ve had three days of it,” deadpanned his coach, Dean Golich of Carmichael Training Systems who accompanied Edwards on his annual three-day, 180 mile trek from Columbia, Mo., to Gateway International Raceway for Saturday’s Nationwide Series race.

Still, it was impressive to see one of NASCAR’s biggest stars playing like a kid on his mountain bike, hanging with his buds and having a grand adventure.

There was no particular itinerary for the trip, just start off in Columbia on Tuesday and get to Madison, Ill., by Thursday night while taking in the sights and sounds along the way, pulling off for lunch whenever and wherever, and finding places to stay for the overnight stops in Jefferson City and Washington, Mo.

The cycling on the Katy Trail was stress free, though one of Edwards’ buds touched a wheel early on the first day and went down, getting a boo-boo on the landing. No worries, tho. Dude rode on.

The cycling on the road was a quite a bit more stressful, particularly the two-lane bridge – “about as wide as this trail,” Edwards said later — over the Missouri on the way to and from Washington from the Katy Trail , and also the adventure out of Creve Couer Lake Park through the county and into St. Louis city. (I provided some sketchy directions for that last part, so if they got lost … my fault.)

The bridge crossing from St. Charles County to St. Louis County was much more pleasant this year. Last year, Edwards and his cycling bud crossed the Boone Bridge on I-64/Highway 40, primarily because they didn’t know another way.

“We just waited for a break (in the traffic) and hauled,” Edwards said.

This year, Edwards’ posse crossed on the bike lane on the Page Avenue extension, and of course, Edwards launched into a wheelie — twas a bridge afterall. He nailed it, too., with his longest and best wheelie of the day.

Read more about the ride at stltoday.com/leftturns

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